Delhi HC to hear Kanhaiya’s plea against fine on Wednesday

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court will hear on Wednesday former JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar’s plea challenging a fine imposed on him by a high-level JNU panel in connection with a 2016 incident in which anti-national slogans were raised on the campus.

The plea will be heard by Justice Siddharth Mridul.

Kumar’s plea, filed through advocate Tarannum Cheema and Harsh Bora, has sought quashing of the notification issued by the high-level probe panel set up by the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The high level enquiry found student-activist Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar and Anirban Bhattacharya guilty in the February 2016 incident wherein a group of students allegedly raised anti-national slogans.

The panel had recommended rustication of Khalid and imposition of financial penalty on 13 other students for violation of disciplinary norms on the campus.

Kumar, a member of the Communist Party of India’s student wing, was President of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union that year.

The three student-activists were accused — though none yet charge-sheeted by police — of raising slogans against national integrity during a poetry-reading gathering of students at the Sabarmati Dhaba on the campus on February 9, 2016.

The Delhi Police arrested Kumar on the campus a few days after and slapped sedition charges as Khalid and Bhattacharya along with three other students went into hiding.

A chain of student protests erupted across India to express solidarity with the JNU students, who said the evidence against them was fabricated and the 1860 sedition law was anachronistic.